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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29088705">A Riot of Colour</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenslight/pseuds/ravenslight'>ravenslight</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Drabble Collection, F/M, Last Drabble Writer Standing, Rare Pair LDWS, rare pairs</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:21:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,351</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29088705</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenslight/pseuds/ravenslight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Collected drabbles written for the Last Drabble Writer Standing: Rare Pair Edition competition. Additional drabbles to be added each week for the duration of my tenure in the competition</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Daphne Greengrass/Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley/Blaise Zabini, Hermione Granger/Charlie Weasley, Pansy Parkinson/Percy Weasley, Theodore Nott/Harry Potter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>45</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Table of Contents</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hiya! I'll be writing a few short rare pairs for a comp I'm taking part in, so I thought I'd drop them all here. This may eventually grow to house more rare pairs after I get booted from the comp, but I'm trying to be more organized this year, so I thought I'd go ahead and pop this together. </p><p>Chapter 1 is an index; this will update each week that a drabble is added. Chapter titles will reflect the pairing featured in that chapter.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <ol>
<li>
<strong> Table of Contents</strong><br/><br/>
</li>
<li>
<strong>blood-red scars / counterfeit love</strong><br/><strong>Rating</strong>: M<br/><strong>Word Count</strong>: 250<br/><strong>Tags: </strong>Voldemort Wins!AU; scarification; fake soul mates; revolution<br/><strong>Warnings</strong>: N/A<br/><strong>Place: </strong>9/34</li>
<li>
<p><b>Title: </b>Liminality<br/><strong>Rating: </strong>T<br/><strong>Word Count: </strong>250<br/><strong>Tags: </strong>Post-war, falling in love, mostly just purple prose<br/><strong>Warnings: </strong>N/A<br/><strong>Place:</strong> Won 2nd place out of 34 drabbles<br/><br/></p>
</li>
<li>
<strong>Title:</strong> In Defense of Medusa<br/><strong>Rating:</strong> T<br/><strong>Word Count:</strong> 450 <br/><strong>Warnings:</strong> N/A<br/><strong>Place: </strong>Won 1st out of 29 drabbles<br/><br/>
</li>
<li>
<strong>Title:</strong> A Lot Like Hope<br/><strong>Rating:</strong> T<br/><strong>Word Count:</strong> 500<br/><strong>Warnings:</strong> N/A<br/><strong>Place: </strong>Won 3rd out of 21 drabbles<br/><br/>
</li>
<li>
<strong>Title:</strong> In the Marrow<br/><strong>Rating:</strong> G<br/><strong>Word Count:</strong> 100<br/><strong>Warnings:</strong> N/A<br/><strong>Place: </strong>Won 1st out of 18 drabbles<br/><br/>
</li>
<li>
<strong>Title:</strong> Forced Disclosure<br/><strong>Rating:</strong> T<br/><strong>Word Count:</strong> 500<br/><strong>Warnings: </strong>Referenced/Fear of homophobia<br/><strong>Place: </strong>13th out of 13 drabbles, knocked out of competition</li>
</ol>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Hermione Granger x Charlie Weasley</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The prompted pairing for this round was Hermione Granger x Charlie Weasley. The prompted colour was red, and the theme was passion. We could choose to incorporate the colour, the theme of the colour, or both.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>blood-red scars / counterfeit love</b>
</p><p>
  <em>Charles Ignatius Weasley, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The Ministry is pleased to present your verified match:  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> DAVIS, TRACEY. HALF-BLOOD.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> If you received this notice in error, notify the Ministry of Magic immediately. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Dolores Umbridge </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Wizarding Lineage Preservation Initiative</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>Hermione arrives on his doorstep in mourning robes in remembrance of Ron.</p><p>“Your letter?”</p><p>She dips her head. “Goyle.”</p><p>A lead weight in his chest, his heart sinks. “Davis.”</p><p>“At least she isn’t terrible.” A half-hearted smirk tugs at her lips.</p><p>It doesn’t hide the ripple of righteous anger flickering in her eyes.</p>
<hr/><p>Together, they etch pleas into battle-worn Galleons. </p><p><em>Fight with us</em>, they plead. </p><p>The messages flare bright in the dimly-lit cottage and fade away; Charlie hopes it’s enough.</p><p>Hand steady, Hermione traces her wand in a crimson arc over his ribs. A brand to match the brush of an Unforgivable follows on her back.</p><p>For Ron. For Harry.</p><p>For the wild-haired witch before him, .</p><p>He will burn far more if the ashes could fill the cracks in their souls.</p>
<hr/><p>They present identical marks to the Ministry.</p><p>Bulbous eyes narrowed, Umbridge verifies their marriage contract as cameras broadcast the event.</p><p>Beneath the scars, Charlie feels a spark: defiance. Marks of their insurrection.</p><p>Hermione signs the Soulmate Exemption Clause, ink bleeding under her palm. </p><p>Hermione Jean Weasley née Granger.</p><p>It should have been Ron, Charlie knows.</p><p>But it’s the spark they need.</p><p>Hermione smiles.</p><p>Unrest whispers along the cobblestones.</p>
<hr/><p>Blood-red scars.</p><p>A counterfeit love story.</p><p>All the things that weren’t meant to be.</p><p>But were.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Theodore Nott / Harry Potter</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>For this drabble, our assigned pairing was Theodore Nott x Harry Potter, the colour prompt was blue, and the theme was calm! </p>
<p>I really enjoyed experimenting with style in this, and it's, in my opinion, a departure from what I normally lean towards. I hope you enjoy it!</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>
    
  </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>Liminality</strong>
</p>
<p>At any second on any given day, someone somewhere in the world is realising they’re in love for the very first time.</p>
<p>Deep in the Forbidden Forest, Theo lies on a bed of decaying leaves. His heart beats a frantic rhythm against his ribs, a volatile sea desperately fighting to free itself of its shore.</p>
<p>Theo has no map for navigating the maze of synapses that have forged a path in the negative space between his body and Harry’s, just as there’s no explanation for the trees in the forest shrinking from the brush of one another’s branches. </p>
<p>It’s the in-between, the hazy boundaries of night and day and all the stolen glances they've traded. </p>
<p>In the dark of the night when the sky is so black that the dawning navy of day is little more than a phantasm on the horizon, Theo can’t catch his breath for the want that consumes him. </p>
<p>A smattering of ash and dried blood freckle Harry’s nose. “We’re alive.” </p>
<p>He’s a mosaic of a man, sea glass shattered and fit back together along jagged edges, and Theo wishes he could hold the pieces in place for Harry even if it means cutting himself.</p>
<p>“How do we go on? I don’t even know who I am.” Harry’s words end in a rasp, tears shining bright behind his glasses, magnified into starlight by shattered lenses.</p>
<p>Theo feels it then: the precipice, the moment his foot nudges a rock into the great abyss the delft depths of which he can either run from or jump headlong into.</p>
<p>In the scant stretch of a moment, Theo leaps. It’s never been a choice. Not really, not for him.</p>
<p>He hooks his pinky around Harry’s, a neuron sparking electricity as it bridges the gap between them. A breeze, the collective exhale of the universe’s held breath, gently nudges tree limbs together until they entangle overhead. “I know you.” </p>
<p>Perhaps it’s a mistake, but they’re the only words that he can force past the knot in his throat, the veritable tidal wave of emotion threatening to drag him under.</p>
<p>Oxygen be damned; Theo will drown on dry land for the anchor that the juncture of their skin offers. And when Harry squeezes his pinky in return, the tide in his chest calms, content to rest in the gravitational pull of Harry’s touch.</p>
<p>On the horizon, day breaks and with it, peace.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Ginny Weasley x Blaise Zabini</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompt: Ginny/Blaise; Green; Jealousy</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm ridiculously proud of this ficlet and so floored to have been voted first place. Thank you for reading! Like other chapters in this collection, this fic is unalphaed and unbetaed.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>
  <b>In Defense of Medusa</b>
</p><p>Beneath the hum of a tattoo gun, Ginny Weasley is reborn.</p><p>In the quiet years after the war, Ginny grew accustomed to the headlines, all of which referred to her in the tertiary: <em> Ron Weasley’s sister Ginny </em> , <em> Harry Potter’s beloved wife Ginny </em>.</p><p>The last until she dared to want more than he offered.</p><p>She could never be a carbon copy of Molly; she couldn’t give him the brood of children her brothers had, something Harry coveted with frightening intensity. Theirs was a bitter, public end; hardly a day passed without a reminder of his resentment.</p><p>But with the needles of the tattoo gun rhythmically puncturing her skin, pain arcing over her ribs like Fiendfyre, Ginny is both none and all of it—she is proud and uncompromising, shedding the constricting veneer of the girl she once was. </p><p>“Why a gorgon?” Zabini doesn’t look up, but she doesn’t expect him to. They’re familiar with one another in the same way strangers who pass each other on the street in observance of their banal routines are. It’s been years, but he’s not changed, just as silent and assessing as he was in Hogwarts’ halls.</p><p>In his palm, he cradles a rag soaked through with Murtlap Essence, and each pass of it over her ribs soothes her screaming flesh before the bite of the needle reawakens it.</p><p>“Not <em> just </em>a gorgon,” she manages through clenched teeth. A frisson of pride chases up her spine that her voice betrays no emotion. It’s a hard-won commodity, her placidity, borne of necessity. “Medusa.”</p><p>Finally, Zabini meets her gaze. She doesn’t expect him to <em> see </em> her, his eyes pinning her down like a specimen to a board. “Some legends say she was a monster.”</p><p>“And others that she was a victim of circumstance forced into a false ternary: a nurturing mother, a spotless virgin, or an insatiable whore,” Ginny fires back. “An impossible choice mandated by a jealous man thought above reproach.”</p><p>She’s no longer speaking about Medusa. </p><p>“My mother too.” He switches the machine off, turning his attention to its inky tip. Steady hands wipe it clean. “Until she wasn’t.” </p><p>He taps a tattoo on his forearm. A spider, all black save a piercing red hourglass inked into its ventral surface. “They fear what they can’t control.”</p><p>Lost for words, she focuses on the careful dexterity of his fingers as he dips the tattoo gun’s nub into a well of iridescent green ink.</p><p>“Monsters mediated through the lens of patriarchal myth,” Zabini murmurs, settling back onto his stool, “are simply those which men envy most. Don’t let them destroy you, too.” </p><p>The tattoo gun whirrs as he begins to fill in the writhing snakes of Medusa’s hair. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Pansy Parkinson x Percy Weasley</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompt: Grey / Complexity</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Percy is an enigma, all sharp angles and jutting elbows at odds with his immaculately-kept appearance. His pressed wardrobe works to keep everything organised within neat lines.</p>
<p>She knows better.</p>
<p>“Pansy.” He dips his head, low light flickering over his features.</p>
<p>“Weasley.”</p>
<p>His shirt sleeves are rolled to the elbows, the only tangible manifestation of interior chaos. Beneath his oxford, his sternocleidomastoid jumps. He can hide it from everyone else, but not her; he’s fraying at the edges, unraveling under her observation.</p>
<p>Her cigarette butt glows between them, an interplay of black and white casting his hooded gaze deeper.</p>
<p>“Thank you for coming.” Each of Percy’s movements are measured, like he’s desperately clinging to control. The volatility of it rests just beneath his skin.</p>
<p>She exhales an amorphous cloud of smoke, watching it blend into the greyscale, as she bites back her response: she’d always come for him. He knows it as well as he knows his name.</p>
<p>“You’ve been avoiding me,” he adds, indulging in a long sip of his wine. “I’d like to know why.” When he returns the glass to its place, a single bead of wine runs down the curve of the goblet, charting a course over the stem and angled foot, until it reaches the pristine tablecloth.</p>
<p>It spreads out like a bead of dark blood, an irrevocable marker of his discontent.</p>
<p>He’s not a stupid man; he knows there’s more at stake here than either of them have any business discussing candidly, but his gaze roves over her body, caressing her exposed décolletage with familiarity she’d like reflected with the soft curve of his hands.</p>
<p>Self-preservation stays her tongue for no other reason than that she is loath to admit her fear.</p>
<p>Yearning is not an emotion either of them are supposed to feel, carefully eliminated by a Ministry that feared the rise of something like Voldemort again.</p>
<p>Desire is dangerous, but she feels its burn in his consideration.</p>
<p>They reach for each other at the same time.</p>
<p>It’s a fleeting moment, really, an incidental brush of one another’s flesh that could easily be written off as platonic, accidental even, but it’s enough.</p>
<p>
  <em>Colour.</em>
</p>
<p>Blooming, beautiful colour peels back waves of monochromatic grey in concentric circles from their fingertips, and she can’t stifle her gasp.</p>
<p>His hair is just as red as she remembers it, and a watery chuckle escapes her because <em>of course</em> his tie is a sensible dove grey. It comes back to her in dizzying speed, and she has to grip the edge of the table from the shock of it.</p>
<p>Here, in some gods-forsaken restaurant in London, the truth is written in the miniscule gap between Percy’s lips.</p>
<p>“Gods, you are even more lovely in colour,” he whispers, awe and reverence in his tone, and she knows she’ll never let this go again.</p>
<p>The Ministry will fight it, but when his fingers tangle with hers securely, her fear dissipates.</p>
<p>For Pansy, a world without grey feels a lot like hope.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Harry Potter x Daphne Greengrass</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompt: Orange / Creativity</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Harry has learned that desire lives on the skin.</p><p>Desire lives in brushes of fading, ochre sunset as Daphne’s inquisitive fingers trace the notches between his ribs, healing soul-deep scars.</p><p>It’s kisses that taste of apricots while he lowers her to their duvet.</p><p>But love?</p><p>Love lives in the marrow, regenerating parts of him he thought lost.</p><p>Loving Daphne is the Patronus he sends every morning upon arriving safely at work. A warming charm on her favourite calendula blanket.</p><p>It’s the safety of her arms after nightmares.</p><p>Loving Daphne has changed him—but it’s the easiest thing Harry has ever done.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Ginny Weasley x Luna Lovegood</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The prompt for this drabble was yellow / playful. The idea I had that wouldn't let me go definitely did not fit the prompt haha, so I was knocked out, but I had so much fun participating in this and reading so much wonderful work! Until next comp :D</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Ms Weasley, do you have any comments on the nature of your relationship with Luna Lovegood?”</p><p>Shouts and camera clicking follows her when she rips open a shop door and slams it shut, back colliding against it as her chest heaves.</p><p>She can hear their questions through the glass, but a wave of her wand temporarily bars their entrance.</p><p>Several patrons blink up at her, pastries paused at various points in trajectory between their plates and mouths. Luna emerges from behind a swinging door, a bag of piping gel hanging from one hand, a half-decorated demiguise-shaped scone abandoned in the other.</p><p>“Ginny?”</p><p>They were supposed to have more <em>time</em>.</p><p>Time to figure this out, to prepare public statements, time to navigate a relationship in a world steeped in prejudice.</p><p>“They know,” Ginny whispers, trembling fingers pressing to her mouth to contain the sob working its way up her throat as she approaches the counter.</p><p>Raw vulnerability aches in this moment, in this decortication of the façades they’ve so carefully crafted. A current of anger runs through her that they’ll be outed before they’re ready.</p><p>Understanding lights Luna’s eyes, and she darts back through the swinging door, emerging seconds later with a fresh fairy cake. “Sometimes sugar helps.”</p><p>The pastry is still warm, xanthic frosting oozing over its edges as she bites into it.</p><p>An appreciative sigh escapes Ginny, and for just a moment, she forgets what chased her here.</p><p>Luna’s eyes are soft, wrinkles creasing the delicate skin framing them.</p><p>“You’ve got frosting—” Luna gestures, leaning over the countertop. Her fingers brush across the bow of Ginny’s lips, and Ginny leans into the touch, pressing her lips into Luna’s palm.</p><p>“Oh.” Luna tips her head to the side, sad eyes flickering to the customers. “It’s okay, Ginny. We can explain it—”</p><p>But the truth is already out, and Ginny is tired, <em>so tired</em>, of the careful demarcation of who she wants to be and who the public thinks she should be. And she’s not ashamed—not of Luna or their relationship. It’s the complete violation of their privacy that elicits her angry scoff.</p><p>A shaky breath. “I—I don’t want to hide this anymore—hide us. And I know it wasn’t how we wanted to tell everyone, but—”</p><p>She cradles the contour of Luna’s jaw in her hand, and Luna’s gasp in the silence—<em>gods</em>, the impossibly tender silence—is nearly Ginny’s undoing. She leans in, crushing a spun sugar bowtruckle as she captures Luna’s lips.</p><p>It’s a gentle acknowledgement, acceptance of whatever might come, and Ginny falls into it headlong, warmth blossoming in her veins.</p><p>When they part, Luna’s lips quirk in a dazed smile. “I think you let the Wrackspurts in.”</p><p>There’s sunlight in her hair, illuminating her profile with goldenrod whorls, when Ginny pulls her into another searing kiss that neither of them breaks.</p><p>Not when Ginny knocks over a stand of pastries climbing over the counter.</p><p>Not when the patrons begin to clap.</p><p>Not even when reporters flood in, flashbulbs bright.</p>
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